Beck's tree frog (''Litoria becki'') is a species of

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" '' Triadobatrachus'' is ...

in the subfamily Pelodryadinae. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

. Its natural habitats are tropical moist montane forests, grasslands and streams. It was first described by the British biologist and herpetologist

Arthur Loveridge Arthur Loveridge (28 May 1891 – 16 February 1980) was a British biologist and herpetologist who wrote about animals in East Africa, particularly Tanzania, and New Guinea. He gave scientific names to several gecko species in the region. A ...

in 1945 and is named in honour of the American ornithologist and explorer Rollo Beck who led the Whitney South Seas Expedition in the 1920s, collecting bird and other specimens from thousands of islands in the South Pacific.

Description

Beck's tree frog is a fairly large tree frog with a snout-to-vent length of between . The head is about as wide as it is long, with small, widely separated nostrils and tympani (eardrums) somewhat smaller than the eyes. Both fingers and toes are long with the toes being webbed while the fingers have disced tips and are unwebbed, the third finger being the longest. The skin is rather coarse, especially on the head and eyelids, but in other parts of the body it is finer. The upper parts of head and body are brown or dark green, and the underparts are streaked with dark colour.

Distribution and habitat

Beck's tree frog is

to the mountainous regions of Papua New Guinea. It was at first only known from the two highest mountains in the country, Mount Wilhelm in the Bismarck Range and Mount Giluwe in the Southern Highlands. Specimens have been found at altitudes of over . In 2007, a previously unknown population was discovered at an altitude of in the Kaijende Highlands in Enga Province. The typical habitat of this frog is mountain grassland including boggy areas with pools. It breeds in rapid mountain streams, the large eggs being stuck onto the underside of stones. The tadpoles are not known.

Status

Very little is known of this frog and its habits. The high-altitude sites at which it has been observed are far from human settlements and subject to little human impact. It might be vulnerable to the amphibian disease chytridiomycosis which affects some montane, torrent-dwelling frog species in Australia. The IUCN has listed it as being of "least concern".

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q383871 Amphibians of Papua New Guinea Endemic fauna of Papua New Guinea Litoria Amphibians described in 1945 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot